IT’S a long way to Election Day, but one of Alan Hevesi’s leading supporters already is talking about the patronage jobs that will open up if the comptroller becomes mayor.

Errol Louis, a candidate for the City Council seat held by Mary Pinkett (D-Brooklyn), says Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence Norman suggested he drop out of that crowded race in return for a possible job in a Hevesi administration.

“He was saying, ‘We’re trying to get Hevesi into City Hall. If he wins, there’ll be all kinds of goodies.’ That was the suggestion he was making,” Louis told The Post. The Courier-Life newspaper chain first reported the offer in even stronger terms, claiming Norman dangled “a potential assistant-commissioner post.”

Norman said he would never make such a blatant pitch.

“To suggest I asked him to pull out of the race for an assistant commissionership is a crime. He needs to retract that,” Norman said.

“I can ask people to give consideration to working with the county organization and not consider their own aspirations. Then, down the road, we’ll see if there are opportunities that open up.”

Norman’s candidate in the race is Letitia James, who benefited from one of those opportunities.

She landed a job running Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s Brooklyn office after the Brooklyn organization endorsed him in 1998.

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Mayor Giuliani has never been able to prevent the council from overriding his vetoes.

Insiders say the administration came close this week, when the Committee on Government Operations barely mustered the five votes needed to override the mayor’s veto of the 4-for-1 formula for campaign matching funds.

Mayoral aides convinced at least a couple of the committee’s nine members to “stay away.”

“They were making some very attractive offers,” said one source.

Giuliani argues the 4-for-1 formula, which provides $1,000 for every $250 raised by a candidate for city office, is too generous and will cost taxpayers $100 million.

Aides to Council Speaker Peter Vallone acknowledged that the Government Ops vote was delayed. But they blamed “logistical problems” and insisted the outcome was never in doubt.

“[Councilwoman] Eva Moskowitz was out sick. We had a car ready to pick her up,” said one council source, explaining Moskowitz would have provided the fifth vote if necessary.

The override measure goes to the full council Tuesday, where the administration faces much longer odds of beating the override.

But this remains a vote to watch.

“I want to be in the [council] chamber for this one,” said one City Hall official.